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Lot Essay
The Korrigane expedition (1934-1936) took place during an exciting period of discovery and ethnographic expeditions between the two wars. Five people initiated: Etienne and Monique de Ganay, Charles and Régine van den Broek and Jean Ratisbonne. They were all young, rich, adventurous and well-informed about their various destinations. For instance, in 1933, before they left France, Monique de Ganay took courses in ethnography given by Marcel Mauss (Coiffier, 2001).
The yacht spent a long time in the South Sea islands, a poorly known region for Europeans. They brought back from this expedition more than 2500 objects and thousands of photographs which represent today an invaluable testimony of the cultures they encountered, especially Melanesian. All the treasures from the Korrigane were deposited at the Musée de l'Homme in 1936. After which some were given to the museum, taken back by the owners or sold.
On March 28th 1934, the Korrigane left Marseille in the direction of the Pacific Ocean via the Panama canal. They first visited the Marquesas Islands, the Society Islands, New Zealand, Fiji Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and finally arrived on June 28th 1935 in Santa Cruz Islands. On the same day Monique, Etienne, Jean and Charles left the yacht with a dinghy and visited Mananu and Nimbelowi villages. The Beyeler dish was acquired the following day by Monique de Ganay in trade for five sticks of tobacco in Métapïeti, a locality in Mananu village, on the south coast of Santa Cruz Islands. She was informed that this dish, called Lam, represened a shark and was used for food.
Even though, Monique de Ganay was told that this dish was used for food, the quality of the carving, the elegance of the sculpture and the rarity of the general form indicate that it couldn't have been used on a daily basis, and that it was certainly made for an important person or for ceremonial purposes.
Deborah Waite (personal communication, March 2011) cites Gerd Koch (1971,pp. 68-71) as noting the various names: kumete, sapilo and lamu for these rare bowls in the form of a fish or a bird. More common are bowls with pointed oval shapes.
It is easily understandable that Ernst Beyeler selected this work of art knowing his passion for modern art. The elegance of the object's overall curved shape gives us an illusion of movement. With very few details, the artist gave life to this minimalist representation of a fish. We can compare the Beyeler Santa Cruz dish to the Brancusi work called L'Oiseau (1923-1947, Beyeler Foundation) consisting on an elongated oval form representing a bird gracefully projected towards the sky.
The yacht spent a long time in the South Sea islands, a poorly known region for Europeans. They brought back from this expedition more than 2500 objects and thousands of photographs which represent today an invaluable testimony of the cultures they encountered, especially Melanesian. All the treasures from the Korrigane were deposited at the Musée de l'Homme in 1936. After which some were given to the museum, taken back by the owners or sold.
On March 28th 1934, the Korrigane left Marseille in the direction of the Pacific Ocean via the Panama canal. They first visited the Marquesas Islands, the Society Islands, New Zealand, Fiji Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and finally arrived on June 28th 1935 in Santa Cruz Islands. On the same day Monique, Etienne, Jean and Charles left the yacht with a dinghy and visited Mananu and Nimbelowi villages. The Beyeler dish was acquired the following day by Monique de Ganay in trade for five sticks of tobacco in Métapïeti, a locality in Mananu village, on the south coast of Santa Cruz Islands. She was informed that this dish, called Lam, represened a shark and was used for food.
Even though, Monique de Ganay was told that this dish was used for food, the quality of the carving, the elegance of the sculpture and the rarity of the general form indicate that it couldn't have been used on a daily basis, and that it was certainly made for an important person or for ceremonial purposes.
Deborah Waite (personal communication, March 2011) cites Gerd Koch (1971,pp. 68-71) as noting the various names: kumete, sapilo and lamu for these rare bowls in the form of a fish or a bird. More common are bowls with pointed oval shapes.
It is easily understandable that Ernst Beyeler selected this work of art knowing his passion for modern art. The elegance of the object's overall curved shape gives us an illusion of movement. With very few details, the artist gave life to this minimalist representation of a fish. We can compare the Beyeler Santa Cruz dish to the Brancusi work called L'Oiseau (1923-1947, Beyeler Foundation) consisting on an elongated oval form representing a bird gracefully projected towards the sky.